Dear Sisters and Brothers,

We come now to one of the great "loose cannons" in the history of the Churches of Christ, Ira Young Rice, Jr.-- a person whose boundless energy, appetites, longings, and megalomanic instincts have propelled him repeatedly into breathless notoriety and endless controversy for more than half a century.

In 1934, at age 16, Ira Rice set out to "hitchhike around the world." He got as far as the Texas Gulf Coast, where he found ships lying at anchor, becalmed by the worldwide Depression. Nicholas Brodie Hardeman, preaching a gospel meeting in a South Texas town, advised the aspiring world traveler to "go home and stay home!" Ira Rice did return to Norman, Oklahoma-- only because, he says now, he could not find a ship that would take him to "the Bible lands"--and briefly attended Oklahoma University. His appetite for global conquest, fed by the missionary consciousness of his first mentor, Arthur Reeves Holton (1891-1964), continued to grow unabated. By 1938 he had come to the Rio Grande Valley of Texas, where he preached for small congregations at Edcouch and Mercedes, and earned money at a weekly newspaper in Raymondville. It was from the platform of the Willacy County Chronicle that Ira Rice realized the first of his great ambitions, when he launched Christian Soldier on 2 March 1939. If he could not, at age 21, become an "editor bishop," he could be a Texas "fightin' editor"--a role for which there were many models, some secular and some somewhat sacred. The paper's name did not belie its content, and both expressed the mind of the young editor. Militancy was and is the among the more obvious distinguishing conditions of this colorful and complicated human being.

In the Valley Ira Rice may have first encountered the most influential of his mentors and role models, the formidable Richard Nathaniel Hogan. In Hogan the young and not yet fully formed Ira Rice found a Paul to whom he could be a Timothy, and from Hogan he borrowed, consciously perhaps, many of the elements of what became his ecclesiology and his style. We have already seen one reaction to this attachment, in FEW's "Negro Meetings for White People." In this document Ira Rice recalls the incident that gave rise to that attack and offers a typically grandiose and self-serving account of his response to it.

What Hogan saw in Ira Rice may now be impossible to recover. i hope he wrote it down, and i hope someone will find it. Perhaps he saw the makings of a Campbellite John Brown. We may not doubt that Ira Rice sees himself in just such heroic terms. No figure among members of the twentieth-century Churches of Christ more obviously understands himself historically, as a historical person in historical time. Yet this historical sense is inevitably, in Ira Rice, egocentric and delusive. When push comes to shove, Ira doesn't quite make the cut; he never really puts his money and the rest of his anatomy where his mouth is. But he may have come as close to that blood sacrifice as any white member of the Churches of Christ ever has.

This document begins with lengthy excerpts from a tract by Roosevelt Worde, Where Do You Stand on Integration in the Church of Christ?. That tract, if we can find a critical text, deserves a place in this series in its own right, but it is not Ira Rice. This is Ira Rice, taking up where Brother Worde leaves off. He is, as always, firing both barrels.

I had the foregoing [a tract by Roosevelt Worde] in my suitcase one night back in 1960, as I recall, when it was my privilege and pleasure to stay one night in the home of a certain high official in one of our self-styled "Christian" colleges. How can we call our colleges "Christian", I wanted to know, when we even bar Christians of another race from attending them? We discussed the matter at some length (that particular college still bars Afro-American brethren from its student-body), though perhaps not as much in detail as brother Worde's declaration.

The upshot of the matter was that, at that time, six years would pass before Ramona, my beloved eldest daughter, would be ready for college. Then, one after another, I should have four other children ready as the years come and go. I wanted them all to attend that college; still do! However, from small, I have reared them to be Christians. Vada, my wife, has backed me up in this--all the way. We have taught them that racial-discrimination and color-bar is not from God, but from the Devil, hence unChristian. In my estimate that particular college is a wonderful college--Christian in all respects with this one single exception. Both my wife and I want our children to go there. But, as God is my witness, not one of them will ever attend that college until that unChristian color-bar (irrespective of race) is forever gone!

In October, 1960, before returning to the Far East, the Hampton Place Church of Christ, our sponsoring congregation, had a missionary workshop for the churches in the Dallas, Texas, area. One of our speakers was dear old brother Marshall Keeble. After he had spoken, so inimitably, as he always does, I took him back to the train station. "Brother Keeble," I declared, "it is perhaps a good thing I'm going back overseas. If I stayed in the United States just now, I probably would get myself killed. I do not believe it is right for us to have white churches and colored churches, but just churches of Christ. And if I remained here, I would initiate a brotherhood-wide campaign to integrate all the churches of Christ into one."

To my considerable astonishment, instead of rejoicing, the venerable old brother began to cry. He pleaded with me not to do it, said he had worked hard all his life toward the day when the white and colored brethren would welcome each other in love--but that if I began pressing for integration then, it was still premature, and would probably undo all the good he had managed to accomplish in a lifetime.

That I listened to what he had to say is evident; for I did not--then--begin the campaign I had in mind for integration. Neither did I publish brother Roosevelt Worde's statement, which I had in my things in Dallas that very night. And, since that night, brother Keeble came all the way around the world to see me in Singapore (November, 1962), which I deeply appreciated.

I kept thinking--and hoping--that someone else, other than I, might have the courage and vision to stand up and speak out in an effective way on this matter. When I read what Carl Spain said at Abilene on integrating, I could have shouted. I honor him for his Christianity and his courage. I honor brethren James W. Nichols and Lane Cubstead, not only for reporting it, but for the editorial stand they took in the Christian Chronicle in this regard.

However, brethren, let's face it. These few voices have been almost like one crying in the wilderness. They perhaps have been preparing the way. But this brotherhood, by and large, still is not walking in that way!
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Lest any should mistake me for a Johnny-come-lately to the battle for integration--especially of the churches of Christ-- I hasten to inform some and remind others that I have been in this effort for nigh onto 30 years. As far back as 1935, while but a freshman at the University of Oklahoma, I already could see the hypocrisy as well as the futility of disintegration. While in O.U., I was one of the four original organizers of what was called the Oklahoma Youth Legislature--a "legislature" to which we invited representatives from the more than 300 youth groups in the State of Oklahoma at that time. We were not particularly conscious, until their delegates arrived, that some of these youth groups were colored. But, as they began arriving at the State Capitol buildings (the other organizers and I had gone to the Governor and secured the use of the Senate and House of Representatives chambers, as well as his own office!), it was soon evident we were not all of the same shade or hue. I can still see the headlines and hear the outcry (to high heaven? or lowest hell?), when some of our bigoted Oklahoma legislators found out there were "niggers" (their word) seated at their desks at Oklahoma City! Somewhere among my souveniers[sic] I still have those clippings if you would like to see them. . .

When I went to the Lower Rio Grande Valley of South Texas in 1938, there was NOT A SINGLE AFRO-AMERICAN CHRISTIAN in all that area--though there were 19 congregations of white folks styling themselves as "churches of Christ". The same year I took the lead in getting brother N. B. Hardeman to come down for an area-wide gospel campaign at Harlingen's Municipal Auditorium (1940), I further took the lead in getting R. N. Hogan to come to the Rio Grande Valley for the FIRST GOSPEL MEETING AMONG COLORED PEOPLE IN THAT PART OF TEXAS. I even led the singing for it! Which so incensed one of the white preaching brethren that he got on the radio and attacked me publicly for "waving (my) arms down there in front of all those niggers" (his words)--as if, somehow, you could lead singing without waving your arms! (I never will forget one good Christian sister Coleman, who walked up to that preacher when he arrived at the tent that afternoon, drew the back of her hand across the back of his, observing, "See there, brother Jeffcoat, it didn't rub off!" He was practically beside himself with hate and anger for her--but what could he do? As everyone could plainly see, he was lily-white as he had ever been--which was none too "white", no matter how you looked at him!)

During that first Hogan campaign, he and I got caught in a freak South Texas blizzard one night--and had to stay at the same house. It was a circumstance which neither of us had planned and which was beyond our mutual control. Yet, when a certain eminent editor (later not-so-eminent) among "us" heard the story, instead of understanding it for what it actually was and forgetting it, he had something to say about it editorially, which, as far as I've heard, he has never retracted. This led to the most gruesome knock-down-drag-out editorial battle this brotherhood as gone through in the 20th century--and it has seen some dillies! I did not back away from that fight, and though I would not welcome another like it, should it come to pass, I still would not back away. (That brother never was the same afterward. The idea, evidently, was to put me out of preaching forever. Well, I'm still preaching.)

For a long time I could not understand why brother Hogan almost invariably arrived at his gospel meeting appointments almost completely exhausted. But I finally found out what it was. To begin each meeting, that is. So prejudiced were the people (including most of his white brethren) in America, once he left Los Angeles there was almost no place the[sic] could get accommodations either to eat or sleep all the way to Texas! The result was once he started driving through, he had to keep right on going, day and night, without stopping but for gas and oil, all the way through. And this supposed to be in "Christian" America! Christian my eye! He would have received more "Christian" treatment than that among the pagan barbarians of Asia who had never even heard of Jesus Christ!!

One time, I recall, I wanted brethren Hogan, J. S. Winston and J. M. Butler, all of them Afro-Americans, to enjoy a game-dinner with me over at Reynosa, Republic of Mexico. I had eaten there often and thought [18] I knew just the place. When we got there, we went in, took a table, and sat down. There was not another customer present. Still, instead of coming over courteously and taking the order, as always before, the waiters pretended they didn't see us. After some minutes of this, I walked over to one of them and asked when we might expect service. He explained that this establishment "could not afford" to serve us in the dining room--that if any of their prejudiced "regulars" from the Texas side should happen in and see "niggers" eating there, it would "ruin our business"!

"We have come all this way from Weslaco just to have one of your game-dinners," I told him. "Do you mean that after we have come all this long way, we still have to turn around and go back without it?" You see, I, too, was a "regular" customer --though not a prejudiced one. He thought it over, finally said if we didn't mind eating "in the back", he would bring it to us there. I didn't like it, but finally said, "Well, all right." I'm not saying he fed us in the out-house, brethren. I'm telling you the truth: He led us to a little room directly behind the out-house--and there, in plain sight of whatever any out-house customer had to do, we had to eat our lovely game-dinner. Oh, I really got "indoctrinated" as to what our colored brethren were having to put up with, not only as their normal course of life, but often as not from their own white brethren in the Lord.

As the years wore on, I was associated, especially with brother Hogan, in gospel meetings for both colored and white together, time after time. In the earlier meetings, I confess, we had a rope down the aisle, seating the whites on one side of the rope, the colored on the other. However, gradually, that rope began to disappear.

By 1945, in my study of the New Testament, I had already become convicted that racial segregation among the churches of Christ not only was uncalled-for, but downright sinful. In Romans 2:11 I had found that there is "no respect of persons" with God. From James 2:1 I learned that neither are Christians to have "respect of persons." I Timothy 5:21 said something about observing these things "without preferring one before another, doing nothing by partiality." And Revelation 22:17 capped it all off by putting Christianity on the basis of "whosoever will." The tenor of which, and other, scriptures finally led me to the conclusion that if the Restoration Movement ever was to get ALL THE WAY BACK TO JERUSALEM, it meant 100 integration of the churches of Christ was an absolute must.

Since we have local autonomy of churches, of course, neither I nor any man could dictate integration brotherhood-wide--or even locally. As far as I could see then or now, it must come about as a teaching process followed by demonstration. To get going on this, I began the Downtown San Francisco Church of Christ, which now meets at 1349 Mission Street, San Francisco, on July 8, 1945. We had taken an area-wide religious census of a circle within a six-block radius of that location. We found there were people out of 37 nations under heaven, representing practically every race on earth, within that small radius. I struck off some advertising, announcing the beginning of a new international, interracial congregation of Christ, stipulating that "whosoever will" may come.

And come they did. Within the five years and two months I lived, loved, and labored in Downtown San Francisco, we succeeded in getting people from every race--and from 19 of those nations--into our auditorium. Of which we succeeded in baptizing people--hundreds of them across the years--from five different races and eight different nationalties[sic]. Many and many is the time is the time we had the Lord's Supper served the congregation by brethren no two of which were either of the same race or nation!

Did it work? Did it! I think I have never in all my 32 years of preaching (will be this May 13) seen a happier or more effective congregation than Downtown San Francisco was in those early days--1945-1950. I counted up once--and at least 30 of our preaching brethren, some of whom are now extremely well-known to most of you, either got their start or much of their initial preacher-training there. At one time we
[19]
had gospel preaching going there every single night for 18 months straight without even one single night off in all that time. This so exercised congregations in various parts of the brotherhood, that numbers of others attempted similar campaigns, though I do not recall anyone exceeding that record since Paul at Ephesus. This international-interracial congregation--the first to be restored to the pattern of the first congregation of Christ in Jerusalem in the 20th century, I think--which, in 1945-46, instituted the Friday-night, area-wide young people's meetings in the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Area (later including the entire Northern California area), which finally culminated in the largest gatherings the church had seen in all the Western United States up until that time. For instance, at Sacramento, we drew more than 1,000; at San Jose, 1,250; and at Central Oakland, 1,640, at which time we had to take over the Oakland Civic Auditorium Theater. I know whereof I speak, as I was m.c. at all of these big meetings. But keep in mind that it was all started by this brotherhood's first international-interracial, fully integrated congregation in the 20th century. It can succeed! But even if it could not, what of that? It is still God's will!!

Those brethren among us, who rule out some from our congregations and schools because of race or color, many of them would most surely--100 of Acts 8, if he tried to get in where they so discriminate. I've been to Jerusalem and have seen how dark-skinned most of the people are there. Why if the Lord Jesus Christ himself tried to get into some of "our" colleges or congregations, I can just hear the deans or elders advising him that owing to the color of his skin "it might be best to" attend college--or worship--elsewhere. As for that product of interracial intermarriage, Paul's son in the gospel Timothy, how far do you think such a half-breed would get in Nashville or Henderson or Montgomery or Searcy or even-now-to-some-extent Abilene?

Oh, but, I'm told, things are SO MUCH BETTER IN ABILENE! Think so? If they really are, then why does Southwestern Christian College still exist at Terrell? There never would have been a segregated college for Afro-Americans at Terrell, if ACC had been truly Christian. To talk about colleges being "Christian" when Christians in fellowship STILL CAN NOT GAIN ADMISSION TO THE LOWER LEVELS BECAUSE OF RACE OR COLOR--well, how hypocritical can you get? (I am not aiming this paragraph at any particular person--just whoever is responsible for such an unChristian, ambiguous, indefensible policy. Frankly, I do not know just which brother or brethren this might be.)

I do not believe brother Don H. Morris to be a prejudiced man--certainly not in his own right. For more than a quarter of a century I have accounted him a true friend--and still do! I believe that if integration at Abilene Christian College were left strictly up to brother Morris, it would have been an accomplished fact, long since. I will continue to believe this of him unless he himself lets me know somehow otherwise.

When my son in the gospel, David Chew, was finishing his second year at York College, last Spring, he wrote to me that he thought he'd like to attend Abilene Christian College for his third and fourth years in the States. Conscious as I was of the racial bigotry around Abilene as a city, I hoped it would be "Christian" on ACC's campus! So I wrote brother Morris for a scholarship for David (who is Chinese); and brother Morris graciously took the matter in hand and it was done.

Naturally, as David's father in the gospel, I was vitally concerned how he personally would be received at ACC--also how he would react once he discovered the Achilles heel of Christianity in Abilene. I made no attempt to prejudice him, determining to just let him find out things by himself. He did--and it did not take long, either! On August 5, 1963, after arriving at ACC, he wrote me spontaneously, as follows:

"Dear Bro. Rice, It is indeed a change and distinct contrast between York and Abilene. I find the people in York very friendly, very [20] helpful and very kind. Abilene is just the opposite. This is something that I have to learn to adjust. I daresay that young babes in Christ should not be sent here because the spiritual standard of ACC is very low. . . I have just been here for three weeks and I have seen a lot of things that would really discourage any young Christian. Talking about evangelizing the world, I think the campus of ACC would be a good mission field itself. . . "

Four months went by, and in his December 14, 1963, letter to me David wrote in part: "Articles about 'Segregation' have become a subject of debate in the brotherhood today. The latest Chronicles carry the stories . . . The question is: Integrate--or not integrate? One writer says, 'Let's not add oil to the fire, lest the Churches of Christ will be divided.' I agree with this man that the church will be divided in America over Segregation. The editor was praised by some for bringing up the racial question and condemned by some for the same. If you are still ignorant of this, I hope you will get a copy of the Chronicle and read it and perhaps do something about it. I know you are not a segregationist, otherwise you wouldn't have associated with Bros. Carson, Keeble, etc.

"I have often been asked about segregation by my friends back home and I have not given them satisfactory answers yet. I am sure you must have been asked about racial barrier[sic] in America. I met the Peace Corps director at Abilene last month and he said that many of his Peace Corps volunteers in Malaya were faced with questions about color-bar in the U.S.A.

"Kennedy's death is a great loss to the free world--the United States of course--but especially to the color people. The color people said that Kennedy is the second Abraham Lincoln. The color people love him because of his Civil Rights program. It is believed that Red China is going to lead the color people of the world against the whites. At present Premier Chu EnLai is touring Africa. I hope this speculation will not come into being. The world today is terrible. May the Lord guide and direct those brethren in the North and South that they might come to a compromise over the question of Integration. . ."

Brethren, I know David and I'm certain that he was using the word "compromise" in the sense of mutual understanding, not in the sense of giving over on principle. For any compromise of principle on this or any other issue just won't do. We have to stand 100% for truth and right at all times if we have any right to think of and to count ourselves Christians.

Herewith I am calling upon every elder, deacon, preacher, teacher, paper editor, college president or any other brother among us to STAND UP AND LET OURSELVES BE COUNTED. Are we for letting there be NO DIVISIONS AMONG US or against? In my estimate the No. 1 reason only a handful of the preacher students we have sent to America for studies since World War II have returned to carry the gospel to their people is they have lost faith in Christianity through our hypocrisy on this point. All this time we've been blaming them, the real blame was within ourselves! It is this dissimulation among us, unqualifiedly condemned in Galatians 2, which is ROBBING us of theure--rule out the ETHIOPIAN EUNUCH of Acts 8, if he tried to get in where they so discriminate. I've been to Jerusalem and have seen how dark-skinned most of the people are there. Why if the Lord Jesus Christ himself tried to get into some of "our" colleges or congregations, I can just hear the deans or elders advising him that owing to the color of his skin "it might be best to" attend college--or worship--elsewhere. As for that product of interracial intermarriage, Paul's son in the gospel Timothy, how far do you think such a half-breed would get in Nashville or Henderson or Montgomery or Searcy or even-now-to-some-extent Abilene?

Oh, but, I'm told, things are SO MUCH BETTER IN ABILENE! Think so? If they really are, then why does Southwestern Christian College still exist at Terrell? There never would have been a segregated college for Afro-Americans at Terrell, if ACC had been truly Christian. To talk about colleges being "Christian" when Christians in fellowship STILL CAN NOT GAIN ADMISSION TO THE LOWER LEVELS BECAUSE OF RACE OR COLOR--well, how hypocritical can you get? (I am not aiming this paragraph at any particular person--just whoever is responsible for such an unChristian, ambiguous, indefensible policy. Frankly, I do not know just which brother or brethren this might be.)

I do not believe brother Don H. Morris to be a prejudiced man--certainly not in his own right. For more than a quarter of a century I have accounted him a true friend--and still do! I believe that if integration at Abilene Christian College were left strictly up to brother Morris, it would have been an accomplished fact, long since. I will continue to believe this of him unless he himself lets me know somehow otherwise.

When my son in the gospel, David Chew, was finishing his second year at York College, last Spring, he wrote to me that he thought he'd like to attend Abilene Christian College for his third and fourth years in the States. Conscious as I was of the racial bigotry around Abilene as a city, I hoped it would be "Christian" on ACC's campus! So I wrote brother Morris for a scholarship for David (who is Chinese); and brother Morris graciously took the matter in hand and it was done.

Naturally, as David's father in the gospel, I was vitally concerned how he personally would be received at ACC--also how he would react once he discovered the Achilles heel of Christianity in Abilene. I made no attempt to prejudice him, determining to just let him find out things by himself. He did--and it did not take long, either! On August 5, 1963, after arriving at ACC, he wrote me spontaneously, as follows:

"Dear Bro. Rice, It is indeed a change and distinct contrast between York and Abilene. I find the people in York very friendly, very [20] helpful and very kind. Abilene is just the opposite. This is something that I have to learn to adjust. I daresay that young babes in Christ should not be sent here because the spiritual standard of ACC is very low. . . I have just been here for three weeks and I have seen a lot of things that would really discourage any young Christian. Talking about evangelizing the world, I think the campus of ACC would be a good mission field itself. . . "

Four months went by, and in his December 14, 1963, letter to me David wrote in part: "Articles about 'Segregation' have become a subject of debate in the brotherhood today. The latest Chronicles carry the stories . . . The question is: Integrate--or not integrate? One writer says, 'Let's not add oil to the fire, lest the Churches of Christ will be divided.' I agree with this man that the church will be divided in America over Segregation. The editor was praised by some for bringing up the racial question and condemned by some for the same. If you are still ignorant of this, I hope you will get a copy of the Chronicle and read it and perhaps do something about it. I know you are not a segregationist, otherwise you wouldn't have associated with Bros. Carson, Keeble, etc.

"I have often been asked about segregation by my friends back home and I have not given them satisfactory answers yet. I am sure you must have been asked about racial barrier[sic] in America. I met the Peace Corps director at Abilene last month and he said that many of his Peace Corps volunteers in Malaya were faced with questions about color-bar in the U.S.A.

"Kennedy's death is a great loss to the free world--the United States of course--but especially to the color people. The color people said that Kennedy is the second Abraham Lincoln. The color people love him because of his Civil Rights program. It is believed that Red China is going to lead the color people of the world against the whites. At present Premier Chu EnLai is touring Africa. I hope this speculation will not come into being. The world today is terrible. May the Lord guide and direct those brethren in the North and South that they might come to a compromise over the question of Integration. . ."

Brethren, I know David and I'm certain that he was using the word "compromise" in the sense of mutual understanding, not in the sense of giving over on principle. For any compromise of principle on this or any other issue just won't do. We have to stand 100 0.000000or truth and right at all times if we have any right to think of and to count ourselves Christians.

Herewith I am calling upon every elder, deacon, preacher, teacher, paper editor, college president or any other brother among us to STAND UP AND LET OURSELVES BE COUNTED. Are we for letting there be NO DIVISIONS AMONG US or against? In my estimate the No. 1 reason only a handful of the preacher students we have sent to America for studies since World War II have returned to carry the gospel to their people is they have lost faith in Christianity through our hypocrisy on this point. All this time we've been blaming them, the real blame was within ourselves! It is this dissimulation among us, unqualifiedly condemned in Galatians 2, which is ROBBING us of the FRUIT of our MISSIONARY EFFORTS AROUND THE WORLD! Until we can get this thing--this spiritual cancer --settled among ourselves back home, folks of other colors and races just don't want to hear about Christ's love for ALL men from lips who love--really--only themselves!!!

If you are racially biased, of course, I am not expecting or inviting you to help me and mine get home. But if your heart is pure, we'll appreciate your help. We need more than $6,000 yet to finish our work and buy our tickets. When we reach America, our course is clear. What you are going to do to help us home, we need it NOW!!! --IYRJr.

This final paragraph is wonderfully ironic. The inimitable and interminable IYRJr is pleading for money, that he might leave his mission in Singapore and come "home" to a racially polarized church in a racially polarized United States. It is his expressed desire that "there be NO DIVISIONS AMONG US." Plainly--if his rhetoric is to be believed--he is committed to the struggle, and never less than "100" If anyone can end the reign of silence on matters of race among white Churches of Christ, it is Ira Y. Rice, Jr.

Ira Rice does come "home," of course, but not to a campaign to unify the church. The autumn of 1964 finds him not in Nashville or Birmingham or Dallas, but in New Haven, Connecticut, where he hopes to study "Mandarin Chinese" to further future mission efforts. In the local church this seasoned world traveler, whose global vision has moved him to plant churches across barriers of nation and race, encounters two specimens of a species entirely new to him--graduate students in theological studies, both members of the Churches of Christ. The students are no better prepared to understand and accept IYRJr; to them he is little more than a cartoon-- a loud, ignorant, vulgar, overbearing caricature of all that they have come to detest: underlined, capitalized, red-hot, and 100 percent. These three will find no common ground to occupy, no place where they might hear and come to respect one another for their different accomplishments and possibilities. Instead, Ira Rice will take up his rhetorical "axe," and there will be no ministry of reconciliation. In the steamy "freedom summer" of 1965, while the attention of his American "home" is riveted on matters of race, Ira Y Rice, Jr., is launched on the mission that will consume the rest of his life--and not only his.

May God have mercy.

dhaymes, his mark +